Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [100]
Ford was eager for Rockefeller to feel accepted in the White House as he, on occasion, had not in the Nixon administration. “I want us to embrace him, make him feel at home,” he said.25
After Rockefeller was confirmed in December, the new Vice President met with Ford in the Oval Office. With his shock of gray hair and distinctive dark-framed glasses, Rockefeller was an energetic and powerful presence. The President said he wanted the two of them to work closely together. “Do you have anything else to add, Don?” he asked me.
“I do, Mr. President,” I said. “I think it would be very bad if anyone had the understanding that I was acting as the doorkeeper between you and the Vice President.” I suggested that the two of them agree that Rockefeller should have walk-in privileges with Ford, without including me in the meetings. They both agreed to this, although Rockefeller did say he wanted to stay in close touch with me.26 Additionally, I expressed the hope that Rockefeller and his staff, if they saw a problem, would act promptly to address it before another news cycle passed. “I think we all ought to agree that we’ll pick up the phone and get any problem that seems to be building sorted out immediately,” I said.27 Shortly thereafter, I showed Rockefeller and his two sons around the White House, which was then decorated for the Christmas season. reflecting on the early interactions between Ford and Rockefeller, I told Cheney cheerfully, “They are off to a good start.” Rockefeller, I added, “is such an enthusiastic and decent person.”28
It was not long, however, before my relationship with the Vice President went south, somewhere below Chile, as a matter of fact. Ours turned out to be the most difficult personal relationship I experienced in all of my years in the executive branch of the federal government.
It didn’t help our relationship that Rockefeller and I understood our respective roles quite differently. I saw my job as helping to make sure that the President received a full range of advice on policy questions, even when the advice contradicted the views and initiatives of others, including those of the Vice President. Rockefeller, by contrast, seemed convinced he was an autonomous factor, alongside the President, who had been delegated domestic responsibilities by Ford and, therefore, whose activities and advice should not be challenged by anyone.*
Looking back at how I had suggested Rockefeller as a possible vice presidential nominee to Richard Nixon in 1968, I realized how mistaken I had been. Though I have had to deal with many strong-willed people in government and managed to get along with them, Rockefeller was quite different. His chief of staff, Ann Whitman, once said that the Vice President “acted as if he were President. He’d come back from a meeting announcing that he was going to run the White House.”29 More than one observer thought Rockefeller still had his mind set on the office he by then had sought three times. Bill Moyers, a onetime aide to Lyndon Johnson, memorably quipped. “I believe Rocky when he says he’s lost his ambition. I also believe he remembers where he put it.”30 A man of vast inherited wealth who was accustomed to getting his way, he would badger and pester subordinates until they said what he wanted to hear.
The situation worsened considerably when the Vice President came forward with his own energy proposal. It bore Rockefeller’s unmistakable imprint: It was big, ambitious, complex, and as the Vice President modestly contended, billed to resolve America’s energy woes